This past Tuesday morning, I once again faced the treacherous journey from Harnwell College House to Hayden Hall. With the sun glistening off the Covenant and the heft of my notebooks weighing down my backpack, I threw in my AirPods and locked the world out for a calm 10-minute stroll. However, on my walk, expecting to see my classmates strutting down Locust Walk, everywhere I turned I saw phones clutched in hand, fingers fluttering to send emails, and Italian leather loafers rushing to get to MATH 1070 before Andrew Cooper’s sharp 10:15 a.m. cutoff.
Like most undergraduates, I often find myself in a similar scenario: walking with a purpose instead of for pleasure. Few would even think to accuse Penn students of having too much free time, with weekly clubs, daily classes, late-night study sessions, and Houston Hall pre-ordered pickups filling up Notion calendars left and right. Yet, when given the choice of where to spend the hours of reading, recapping, and researching, time and time again, we resort to claustrophobia-inducing, closed-off chambers that significantly worsen mental health.
The truth, though, is that time isn’t really the limiting factor. Even when a free hour does materialize, the reflex is to spend it exactly where we always do, indoors, under fluorescent light, at another desk. Students repeatedly resort to rooms without “exit valves,” spaces labeled by “a lack of personal space and the inability to escape distractions.” Even when it’s 75 degrees and sunny outside, it’s nearly impossible to reserve a Huntsman group study room or find an office pod unoccupied by your local engineering major. However, what feels productive in the moment may be quietly wearing us down, as prolonged occupancy of crowded, enclosed, or tight spaces is consistently linked to elevated stress levels, social withdrawal, and even aggression.
It’s not just about square footage or crowding; the absence of windows compounds the same problem. Researchers suggest that while square footage undoubtedly has influence, green visibility is the real variable driving mental health outcomes on a campus like Penn’s, referencing a study that found that patients who had a view of nature from their hospital rooms healed more quickly than others in rooms without windows. Strip that same access to Vitamin D from a GSR or a fourth-floor Van Pelt-Dietrich Library carrel, and it’s worth asking what daily deprivation is doing to Penn students.
The decision to isolate indoors is one not made just by Penn students. Penn’s administration, structurally, gives them less room not to, as the University’s semesterly calendar offers fewer days off than any other school in the Ivy League, leaving us with the lowest ratio of break time to class time compared to any peer institution. Layer that onto a campus culture where free time itself feels like something to justify, and it’s no surprise the toll shows up in the numbers.
Whether you wear Penn Face with pride or with shame, Penn consistently shows up atop the most depressed universities list, as demanding classes, cutthroat club applications, and a bubble-like social isolation have contributed to an environment defined by constant emotional turmoil. While Penn’s administration doesn’t disclose statistics about the student body’s mental struggles, approximately 37% and 39% of students across the country face symptoms of depression and anxiety, respectively. Even though we take pride in being known as the “Social Ivy,” it’s about time we address our secondary title: the “Depressed Ivy.”
The remedy, luckily, doesn’t need to be invented, but rather utilized. While Philadelphia isn’t known for its botanical gardens, mountain treks, or even abundance of trees, Penn’s campus provides the foliage and fresh air that may clear your mind more than finishing that problem set will. Skip the GSR and do your reading on College Green, toss a frisbee between conference calls instead of doomscrolling, maybe trade off a Saturday morning spent hunched over a laptop for a stroll down to the Clark Park Farmers Market.
None of this is wishful thinking, as nature walks have been shown to consistently restore one’s attention span without any real effort involved, and Penn’s own research has found that consistent exposure to greenery (instead of empty lots) slashed depression rates by over 40%. Stanford researchers found that outdoor walking nearly doubled the rate of high-quality creative thinking compared to sitting indoors. The Science Advances journal even discovered that for each tree added to an urban setting annually, antidepressant prescriptions decreased correspondingly.
Take the logic to an extreme, and it holds up just as soundly: organized wilderness retreats have led to real, durable boosts to resilience among people who spend weeks fully removed from their routines, not just an afternoon. I was lucky to embrace that wisdom, as I spent my summer free from emails, essays, and enclosures on a backpacking expedition through the backcountry of the Wind River Range in northwest Wyoming. My mornings were simpler, as instant coffee, fuzzy gloves, and “just one more minute” in my sleeping bag brought me more joy than any Pret a Manger latte or Instagram reel could provide. While by no means is a remote excursion accessible or easy to execute, I do hope that those seeking some peace of mind may find some in Philadelphia’s vast landscape.
As midterms and meetings begin to consume our schedules and the weather turns crisp, there’s no better time to start killing your doubts, fears, and worries with a walk outside than now — one where, for 10 minutes, your phone stays in your pocket, and Locust becomes a “walk” again.
JUDAH BLITSTEIN is a College sophomore studying International Relations and Political Science from Elkins Park, PA. His email is [email protected].
Source: www.thedp.com
